More liquid-cooled smartphones to be introduced this year

Apple, Samsung, and HTC are considering the introduction of liquid-cooling technology in their handsets, according to a report published by Digitimes. Smartphones featuring the technology will reportedly be released as early as the fourth quarter of the year. Such liquid-cooling technology will make use of slim heat pipes with liquid coolant that will work to lower the temperature of the smartphone’s internal parts. This prevents overheating and thus improves the efficiency of the devices.

Prior to the three electronic giants, however, the Japan-based company NEC had already released a liquid-cooled smartphone just last month. The device, which is called the Medias X06E, was nicknamed the “ladyphone” since it was aimed at women. Said consumers were promised a smartphone with better cooling capabilities than the others that were available on the market. The Medias X06E, which came in white and pink, features a 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro 4 processor, Android OS, and a 4.7-inch OLED screen with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. For its cooling system, the Medias X06E has a 0.6 mm heat pipe, which is significantly smaller as compared to the 1 to 1.2 mm ones that are used by Ultrabook makers in their devices. Despite the promise of the liquid-cooling technology, it appears that no other NEC handsets offer the same mechanism.

At present, most smartphone makers employ the graphite and foil cooling mechanism. However, this solution is now believed to be unsuitable for current smartphones, many of which are reported to have heating problems because of available technologies such as 4G connectivity support. In contrast with graphite and foil cooling, liquid-cooling is deemed as a more active and effective way to keep the temperatures of mobile devices low.

Several companies are already developing the super-thin 0.6 mm heat pipes, including Chaun-Choung Technology, Auras and TaiSol Electronics from Taiwan, and Furukawa Electric from Japan. Such companies are hard at work at increasing their yield rate, which currently stands at only 30 percent.

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